Isn't the 20 team playoff format only for this year? It is a lame way to increase revenues for this season since so much has been lost by the lockout. It is also a way to lure back as many fans as possible. Lets face it playoffs are the real dance and many a fan is made during them. So in reality it is a cash grab on a shortened season.

Fehr has advocated two things all along.

1) Keep the old CBA, it was working fine thank you very much

or

2) Blow the whole thing up and start from scratch and build a new CBA, new template, new ideas, and try to address all concerns moving forward.

The NHL has continually insisted that the old CBA be the template and then you cut from there. Effectively then the players are doing 100% of the giving. What has the NHL actually given to get this done? Nothing. They have taken an existing workplace contract, if you will, and slashed everywhere and said it needs to be done. OK you need 50-50, and to most it makes sense, how about lowering the age of FA. OH no they say, we need to increase that too. Another take away. How about honouring existing contracts, Oh no they say, we need to get them in line with the new reality. Then how about a make whole. Oh they say but it has to come out of your share.

What has the NHL actual given? What is new and increased for the PA that was not in the old CBA that the owners have given to off set what the PA has given? Nothing!! Not a damn thing. It has been all about cutting from an old CBA in every aspect.

And then when the owners say ok we will give you another 100 million for make whole they say look at all we have given, up to 300 ,million in make whole. Well, wait a minute. That was giving back what you previously took so not really giving up anything to begin with.

The more this goes on the more I think Fehr is right. The best way through this is to blow it up and press the re-start button. Build an entirely new CBA built from the ground up that addresses all the issues. In 7, 8, 9 or 10 years most of these players will be done with hockey but the next generation up will have to go through it all again. Why? Because the CBA in the first place was pretty well built by the owners last time out.

So what do I think will happen (like you all care)? Well, I think it goes to the midnight hour of the last day and then a deal is struck, or not.

HW, given the recent NFL and NBA deals, did anyone expect anything different from the league's offers? It is the trend of sport CBA's.

That is the first I had heard of Fehr wanting to renew the existing CBA. I know he had proposed continuing to play under it while a new deal was worked out, but I did not know he had suggested a complete renewal.

HW, given the recent NFL and NBA deals, did anyone expect anything different from the league's offers? It is the trend of sport CBA's.

That is the first I had heard of Fehr wanting to renew the existing CBA. I know he had proposed continuing to play under it while a new deal was worked out, but I did not know he had suggested a complete renewal.

All you have to do is look at his first few proposals and listen to Bettman and Daley complain that they are not talking the same language. The PA is at a distinct disadvantage when the NHL wants to use the existing CBA, or recently expired, as the template to slash and burn. So the PA's first few responses were to get drastic and change the landscape. We all know how those ideas went over.

He has been on record as saying he would renew the old CBA and failing that, would agree to play under it until a new deal was worked out. At one point he even offered a no strike agreement to offset the concerns that the PA would strike once the playoffs came. All of this was rejected by the NHL. The misconception is that Bettman couldn't trust the PA to not strike whereas the real problem was that if there was an agreement to play under the old CBA, with a no strike agreement, the PA would have to incentive to build a new deal. So the only way the NHL saw to get a new deal was to shut it all down. When they did so they made it clear that they had no intention of revising certain core issues, like HRR.

So they shut it down and then began to dictate what would be renegotiated and what would be left alone in a take it or leave it attitude. In a negotiation there needs to be give and take. In this one there has not been that. It has once again been about the NHL telling the players what it wants and needs and not giving anything back to the players for their concessions. So Ferh said repeatedly, tell us what your goals are, what you need to accomplish and lets try to see if we can build a new way of getting there. Remember the series of proposals the PA gave? They had varying ways of defining HRR, linkage, revenue sharing, escrow, make whole, FA, contract terms , etc. The NHL just walk out crying that the PA was talking a different language. The NHL likes the existing format and just wants to keep clawing back on it. The PA says if all you want is concessions then lets put it all on the table. Something the NHL has refused to do.

Fehr said at one point, if we give in on percentage and other terms whats in it for us. What to we get in return for giving in on these issues, The answer was nothing.

No I do not. I do recall several rewordings of the same proposal that removed linkage. Oh sure they said linkage was there but what they linked to was a mythical projection of ever increasing revenue, not actual revenue. A built in escalation clause they even said could never decrease.

Hockey Widow wrote:Fehr said at one point, if we give in on percentage and other terms whats in it for us. What to we get in return for giving in on these issues,

The more I look at the league's position, the reports of a 20-team playoff (why have a regular season in the first place when you have to try to fail to not get in and thus secure a lottery draft pick?), this just reeks of Bettman trying to prop up his ego-driven southern US exdpansion campaign at the expense of the true hockey-market, big-revenue teams.

Your GM is inept? Horrible organization that no decent players want to go to unless it's for big bucks? Team icing a stinky product that can't draw in the fair-weather fans who only come when their team's winning? NO PROBLEMO!!

Punish the competent, money-making organizations with a lower cap, increase the chances for small-market, south US, inept organizations to get playoff gate receipts and PRESTO! Lower wages, more income, and chain your high draft picks to your cruddy organization until they're over the hill and ready for the pasture. You can have village idiots run your hockey operation, compete like the Leafs on the ice, and rest assured either playoff gate receipts or marketable high draft picks to sell to your fans every season. Muh-Ney In Dah BANK!

No more need for that communistic revenue-sharing clap-trap. No more talk of market economics and competition dictating where teams should and can thrive. Buttman's sunshine dream lives on, while the product suffers and fans in true hockey markets suffer 18th-seeded Florida face 19th-seeded Columbus in the Stanley Cup Final thanks to 'playoff' officiating.

If that's what I have to look forward to as a fan, I say can the season and wait until Buttman and Co are pushed out by the owners of the profitable organizations and we can see a league and game predicated more on better teams on the ice and a hope of officiating aimed more on skill and less on what teams are in it and where they're from.

Yes, my hats may be lined with metal. My tune might be different if I were a Blow-Jockies fan, but then I actually like hockey.

Lancer wrote: this just reeks of Bettman trying to prop up his ego-driven southern US exdpansion campaign at the expense of the true hockey-market, big-revenue teams.

The southern expansion was done prior to Gary's tenure.

Lancer wrote:No more need for that communistic revenue-sharing clap-trap. No more talk of market economics and competition dictating where teams should and can thrive. Buttman's sunshine dream lives on, while the product suffers and fans in true hockey markets suffer 18th-seeded Florida face 19th-seeded Columbus in the Stanley Cup Final thanks to 'playoff' officiating.

Revenue sharing was brought in to keep teams like Vancouver from folding or moving south during the time of US65cent Canuck buck.

Maybe you'd rather be cheering for the Tacoma Domes instead of the Vancouver Canucks.

HW, given the recent NFL and NBA deals, did anyone expect anything different from the league's offers? It is the trend of sport CBA's.

That is the first I had heard of Fehr wanting to renew the existing CBA. I know he had proposed continuing to play under it while a new deal was worked out, but I did not know he had suggested a complete renewal.

All you have to do is look at his first few proposals and listen to Bettman and Daley complain that they are not talking the same language. The PA is at a distinct disadvantage when the NHL wants to use the existing CBA, or recently expired, as the template to slash and burn. So the PA's first few responses were to get drastic and change the landscape. We all know how those ideas went over.

He has been on record as saying he would renew the old CBA and failing that, would agree to play under it until a new deal was worked out. At one point he even offered a no strike agreement to offset the concerns that the PA would strike once the playoffs came. All of this was rejected by the NHL. The misconception is that Bettman couldn't trust the PA to not strike whereas the real problem was that if there was an agreement to play under the old CBA, with a no strike agreement, the PA would have to incentive to build a new deal. So the only way the NHL saw to get a new deal was to shut it all down. When they did so they made it clear that they had no intention of revising certain core issues, like HRR.

So they shut it down and then began to dictate what would be renegotiated and what would be left alone in a take it or leave it attitude. In a negotiation there needs to be give and take. In this one there has not been that. It has once again been about the NHL telling the players what it wants and needs and not giving anything back to the players for their concessions. So Ferh said repeatedly, tell us what your goals are, what you need to accomplish and lets try to see if we can build a new way of getting there. Remember the series of proposals the PA gave? They had varying ways of defining HRR, linkage, revenue sharing, escrow, make whole, FA, contract terms , etc. The NHL just walk out crying that the PA was talking a different language. The NHL likes the existing format and just wants to keep clawing back on it. The PA says if all you want is concessions then lets put it all on the table. Something the NHL has refused to do.

Fehr said at one point, if we give in on percentage and other terms whats in it for us. What to we get in return for giving in on these issues, The answer was nothing.

Thanks for this HW , finally someone who has inside info tells it like it is. Bettman and his band of 8(count them because thats all he needs) owners have been spewing all this BS all through these so-called negotiations.

Point, but Buttman's ridiculous crusade to keep the Coyotes in Phoenix and his shameless propping up of untenable franchises down south says to me he has tied his ego to the southern franchises and his quest for the holy national TV deal. It was a money-driven mistake that he will deny till they put him in the ground.

Topper wrote:Revenue sharing was brought in to keep teams like Vancouver from folding or moving south during the time of US65cent Canuck buck.Maybe you'd rather be cheering for the Tacoma Domes instead of the Vancouver Canucks.

Sarcasm-Alert: Buttman would rather have nothing to do with revenue-sharing if he can solve the problem by paying the players peanuts and driving the league back to the 50s in terms of player relations.

I'm all for strengthened revenue-sharing IOT prop up the faltering franchises. Go figure, that's what the NHLPA has been proposing since the start. It works regardless of currency value - unlike driving down player revenues, which only favour those owners on the favourable side of the border.

^ Back in September or October I was the one who suggested folding the Coyotes as a hardline bargaining tactic. I think the PA would fight tooth and nail against contraction and the job losses that would result.

Topper wrote:^ Back in September or October I was the one who suggested folding the Coyotes as a hardline bargaining tactic. I think the PA would fight tooth and nail against contraction and the job losses that would result.

I don't think anybody wants to see contraction - not when there are a number of other locations who would line up to take the team elsewhere.

Thing is, the league Buttman envisions is like Bizzaro-socialism - there is no incentive for the owners to work harder to improve their product on the ice or innovate to make their operations more viable because they're guaranteed playoff gate receipts or high draft picks. He's trying to make the league idiot-proof so even the retards down south can make a go of it without even trying while the players shut their blue-collars pie-holes, thankful for the peanut crumbs they get for playing hockey. Jacobs and company get to laugh their asses off all the way to the bank

Lancer wrote: this just reeks of Bettman trying to prop up his ego-driven southern US exdpansion campaign at the expense of the true hockey-market, big-revenue teams.

The southern expansion was done prior to Gary's tenure.

Lancer wrote:No more need for that communistic revenue-sharing clap-trap. No more talk of market economics and competition dictating where teams should and can thrive. Buttman's sunshine dream lives on, while the product suffers and fans in true hockey markets suffer 18th-seeded Florida face 19th-seeded Columbus in the Stanley Cup Final thanks to 'playoff' officiating.

Revenue sharing was brought in to keep teams like Vancouver from folding or moving south during the time of US65cent Canuck buck.

Maybe you'd rather be cheering for the Tacoma Domes instead of the Vancouver Canucks.

Half truths ...expansion had started before Bettman, but Bettman took it to another level with 6 new teams including Columbus, Nashville and Atlanta.

The revenue sharing under the old CBA was a misnomer. Equalization for the Canadian dollar helped Edmonton and Calgary and maybe Ottawa but Vancouver was never in serious trouble as a result of the exchange rate.

The kind of revenue sharing the league needed to make the Cap and 50/ 50 split a fair deal has never been a serious part of the NHL's position...

Last edited by ukcanuck on Fri Jan 04, 2013 2:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Topper wrote:^ Back in September or October I was the one who suggested folding the Coyotes as a hardline bargaining tactic. I think the PA would fight tooth and nail against contraction and the job losses that would result.

I don't think anybody wants to see contraction - not when there are a number of other locations who would line up to take the team elsewhere.

Thing is, the league Buttman envisions is like Bizzaro-socialism - there is no incentive for the owners to work harder to improve their product on the ice or innovate to make their operations more viable because they're guaranteed playoff gate receipts or high draft picks. He's trying to make the league idiot-proof so even the retards down south can make a go of it without even trying while the players shut their blue-collars pie-holes, thankful for the peanut crumbs they get for playing hockey. Jacobs and company get to laugh their asses off all the way to the bank

+1
The peanut crumbs being relative to the peanut shells Walmart pays its greeters of course ...

Point, but Buttman's ridiculous crusade to keep the Coyotes in Phoenix and his shameless propping up of untenable franchises down south says to me he has tied his ego to the southern franchises and his quest for the holy national TV deal. It was a money-driven mistake that he will deny till they put him in the ground.

Say what you will about southern expansion, and there are certainly plenty of issues that can be pointed out, the current World Junior US roster includes representation from more then 10 different states. If this is the direction US hockey is headed, some of these sunbelt areas may turn into stable hockey markets.

That roster, which is still dominated by northern states, also has players from California, Texas, and Florida on it. I don't think they've had a team with so much variety on it before.